Glioblastoma Multiforme: Use of Adenoviral Vectors

Glioblastoma multiforme is a tumour of the brain with extremely poor prognosis. It constitutes approximately 60–70% of all primary brain tumours with a mean survival of 14.6 months after diagnosis. Current standard therapy includes surgical resection followed by adjuvant radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. With the introduction of gene therapy a new therapeutic area has been opened and numerous approaches are currently been studied in pre-clinical as well as in clinical settings for the treatment of brain tumours. These include pro-drug activation/suicide gene therapy, anti-angiogenic gene therapy, oncolytic virotherapy, immune modulation and many other strategies, which will be discussed in this review. The use of suicide gene therapy has been probably one of the most studied therapeutic approaches and will be also discussed in this review in more detail.